Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine how cultural-sensitive care can be expressed in ECEC centres with ethnic diversity.
Result
One of the observations showed a "storytelling community", in which the children tell a story together. The theme chosen for the collective story referred to the children's different ethnic backgrounds. According to the researcher, this shows that the children are met as individuals with different experiences and preferences as well as important members of a community. The other observation showed a conversation between three children with a common first language and the same ethnic background and an ECEC teacher. During the conversation, one of the children begins to speak another language than Norwegian, to which the teacher insists that the child speaks Norwegian. The child then decides to withdraw from the community rather than communicate in Norwegian. The researcher finds that the child's non-verbal expressions, and the resources the children have in terms of a common native language, friendships and ethnic background are not given much significance. According to the researcher, this can prevent children from experiencing cultural-sensitive care.
Furthermore, the researcher describes that the children's different positions in the community as described in the above examples may reflect how children find meaning in their interaction with the ECEC teachers and in the ECEC teachers' actions such as care.
Design
The study is based on field work carried out over three months, where the researcher observed everyday interactions between pedagogical staff and children to examine the pedagogical staff's communication with the children in relation to the children's ethnic backgrounds. The observations lasted from a few minutes to about one hour. A total of 120 observations were written down. The empirical material comes from one private ECEC centre and one municipal ECEC centre. A total of 54 children aged 2-6 years and 18 employees took part in the study. Two observations were selected for the analysis. They both represented different perspectives on cultural-sensitive care within an ECEC context. In the analysis, the researchers drew on Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of cultural capital, social capital and recognition.
References
Zachrisen, B. (2017). Kultursensitiv omsorg i barnehagen. Barn: Forskning om barn og barndom i Norden, 2017(2-3), 105-119.